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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24548008">Gone Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jack_inaboxx/pseuds/jack_inaboxx'>jack_inaboxx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>crack in the glass [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Undefined - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:01:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24548008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jack_inaboxx/pseuds/jack_inaboxx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mortality is a fickle thing. </p><p>So is humanity.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>crack in the glass [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Gone Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You’re gone, gone, gone away<br/>I watched you disappear<br/>All that’s left is a ghost of you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now we’re torn, torn, torn apart,<br/>There’s nothing we can do<br/>Just let me go we’ll meet again soon<br/></em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now wait, wait, wait for me<br/>Please hang around<br/>I’ll see you when I fall asleep</em>
</p><p>—| |—</p><p>He is alone today. </p><p>The human is growing frail, older, and cannot join him on their rides anymore. Somehow, the silence is more frightening than a pack of orcs. He finds himself unable to stay out very long, and turns his horse for home. </p><p>This is when the… man… finds him. </p><p>He is not sure that it is a man, it has the stature of one, but in place of a beard, hair, there are vines. it’s clothes are rags, patched in places by leaves, and something that might be human skin. Astar, his loyal stallion, spooks, for only the third time in the many centuries they’ve been together. </p><p>This thing gets under his skin more than anything he has encountered before, even in the depths of Mirkwood, and somehow he knows that if he stays, it will be his undoing.</p><p>He cannot leave. He is frozen still, trapped in his own body.</p><p>The thing speaks. </p><p>It whispers tragedies to him, where he is more still than a statue, cackles of death and loss and endings. </p><p><em>Mortal men are frail, </em>it snickers, a grin like parchment and knives stretching far too wide across it’s narrow face, <em>but mortal women are frailer still</em>. <em>She will die, she will die, she is already dead.</em></p><p>He tries to speak, his very soul crying out in denial- </p><p><em>NO! </em>he roars, with all his being. </p><p>The spell breaks. He is thrown from Astar’s back, the steadiest horse he has ever known wild with terror. Astar bolts, racing in the direction of home, leaving him laying on the ground in the dirt, a deep-rooted fear in his heart. </p><p>The thing laughs.</p><p>It’s still laughing even as it lunges for him, even as he drives his blade of Elven steel deep into where it’s heart may once have never been. </p><p>It laughs even as it screams, and he knows that whatever it is, because it is not dead, even if it is not <em>here</em> anymore and is instead in some <em>other</em> place, it is not, and has never been, human. </p><p>He runs home, all the way, covering ground in a way that he knows is also inhuman, faster and further and more graceful. </p><p>As he’s running, it hits him- whatever that thing is, it had once been an elf. </p><p>The fear in his chest, that hasn’t left, only grows stronger. </p><p>He runs faster. </p><p>She is fine, though tired. She has no idea what he’s talking about. </p><p>He dares not leave her side again. </p><p>She can never know what he saw.</p><p>—| |—</p><p>
  <em>Hey!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t listen to a word I say<br/></em>
  <em>Hey!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The screams all sound the same<br/></em>
  <em>Hey!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Though the truth may vary<br/>This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Though the truth may vary this </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ship will carry our</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bodies safe to shore<br/></em>
</p>
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